The other evening I met an otherwise seemingly sane and intelligent person who claimed that he had been touched by God - the proof being that he had “spoken in tongues”.
So what the hell’s up with that?
I can translate for you (at least just as well as the preacher can)
“Praise the Lord, and send your money”
Best place to start explaining this one is to ask you to take a Bible and look at I Corinthians 12 (and the two chapters that follow, if you’re so inclined).
For people in Pentecostal churches and the “charismatic renewal” in other churches, the use of tongues is considered one of the “gifts of the (Holy) Spirit” bestowed for the edification of the faithful and the building up of the Body of Christ (i.e., the Church conceived of as a mystical unity among people metaphorically seen as a body with Christ at its head).
The phenomenon is occasionally prayer or witness in a foreign language not known to the person speaking in it (at least anecdotally; I don’t believe this has ever been documented by a professional linguist studying the phenomenon) but more often the use of rather euphonic gibberish syllables in an instance of glossolalia. (The fact that the phenomenon does have a natural non-spiritual parallel does not necessarily mean it is not an actual spiritual gift – God is noted among Christians for working His little miracles and such through naturally occurring phenomena.)
The person speaking, praying or singing in tongues normally experiences an inner sense of peace and exaltation, a “spiritual high.”
From outside Christianity (and even from some groups inside it) it definitely sounds like a bizarre phenomenon. But the people who engage in it, while they do include some definite wackos, also include some of the finest stable devout, scholarly, and/or compassionate Christians around, so it’s not totally the mark of a lunatic movement.
I had some experience of being tangentially involved with this movement about 20 years ago, so I can speak more at length on this if desired – just post some questions.
I saw this frequently as a kid, both in church, and even at least once by my grandfather while he was praying at home.
Basically, a person starts spouting gibberish during prayer, and it’s supposed to be a supernatural event where I suppose Jesus/God is suddenly speaking through the person in a language they don’t know. Sometimes, a second person is also “touched” and begins reciting the translation.
It’s a strange concept, especially when there’s no “translator”. What on Earth could be God’s point speaking through somebody in a language nobody in the room speaks?
Funny, I remember one time the pastor, in very nice and delicate manner, gently chastised someone anonymously for making what was to him an obvious false translation, because in it “Jesus” claimed to have some fault incompatible with the Bible (no, I don’t remember at all what it was).
Well, they base it on a section of the New Testament, which no I am not going to go look up for you - when the Holy Spirit touched the believers, they spoke in new tongues (which they had not learned) and went and spoke these real languages and preached the gospel, and people who were native speakers heard and believed.
That’s what the Bible says.
Now, let me tell you my experience:
When I was a freshman in college (1989) I had an…experience. I cannot to this day tell you what it was, or what it signifies now (though at the time, it felt like a gift from God, back when I still believed in God). I had a…conversion experience, complete with a non-ecstatic, er, vocalization. By ‘non-ecstatic’ I mean that I was not in a transfiguration of joy or even feeling a whole lot of strong emotion at the time at all. The people I was with told me this was ‘speaking in tongues’. They also did it. None sounded like the others, and I didn’t sound like them. We used these sounds to ‘pray’ though I confess that even then, I simply had to believe that God understood what I was saying; hoped it meant something.
To this day, 10 years after I pretty much renounced Christianity, I can still do this vocalization. To me, it sounds like some of the Native American languages I’ve heard on documentaries, but I have no idea what I might be saying (if I’m saying anything, which I doubt) or why I can make sounds like this at will. I mean, they’re not random sounds. It’s not babbling the way little babies babble - I have 4 kids, I know what babbling sounds like.
Now, I asked a Christian friend (one of the people who was there that day in fact) what it meant that I can still do this, to get his perspective as a Charismatic Christian. He claimed it’s because the gifts of God can never be taken back. Me, I dunno. And it doesn’t affect my life.
That’s something I’d like to know - have linguists ever studied the “tongues” being spoken to determine whether they resemble a known language or exhibit characteristics of human language in general. Not that I’d expect that to change the minds of believers or non-believers, but it would be pretty neato to know more about it.
I wonder if there are recordings available…
I ran into speaking in tongues (no SIT! T-shirt for me though) among college recruiters for the way ministry back in the 70’s. Apparently, they’re still doing it:
Any TV show or movie documenting the Pentecostal movement would probably have some recording of people speaking in tongues. (I’m not sure about Pentecostal productions themselves, though.) The 2001 documentary Hell House contains some examples of speaking in tongues.
From an introduction to speaking in tongues at religioustolerance.org:
In other words, speaking in tongues generally consists of sounds which are ‘foreign-sounding’ to the speaker. These include, typically, sounds that are similar to those found in American English but are not entirely exotic. Someone speaking in tongues would probably avoid particularly American English sounds like the English retroflex ‘r’ and the /æ/ in ‘bat’. They may include sounds that are known to American English speakers but are not phonemes in American English, such as the glottal stop (‘uh-uh’ and the British pronunciation of ‘bottle’) or the alveolar and bilabial clicks (‘tsk’ and a kiss sound, respectively).
While speaking in tongues may vary between congregations, the examples I’ve heard tend to very heavily emphasize CV (consonant-vowel) syllables. Many ‘foreign’ languages have a greater density of CV syllables than English does; English has a wider variety of syllable types. Using mostly CV syllables may help to make the glossolalia seem more foreign. Using vowels and sonorants (consonants, such as r, l, and s, that involve a continuous passage of air through the vocal apparatus and thus can be sustained) also helps to make the speech more ‘flowing’ than using obstruents (consonants that block the flow of air, such as p, t and k). For example, ‘palalalalalalalala-talalalalalala-haleeleeleeleeleeleela’.
One more observation is that people with more experience in glossolalia, and probably a higher innate level of creativity, tend to generate more variety in their speech. In the examples I’ve seen, the pastors seem to speak much faster and with much more variety, while the congregation speaks more slowly and sounds more like the example I gave. Pentecostals might explain this by saying that some people are better able to let the Holy Spirit speak through them than others, or that the Spirit speaks through different people in different ways. Evangelical Christians who are not Pentecostals would generally point out the fact that, while they meet many of the Pentecostal requirements for being saved, they do not usually speak in tongues.
Yep. (See also the links at the bottom.)
Occam’s Razor suggests, to me at least, that it’s all a parlor trick, wherein the speaker can randomize sounds from his own speech without conscious thought. I suppose the faithful could argue back that the person is Speaking in Tongues with an American accent or something, but I for one am not buying it.
Polycarp:
You forgot to mention I Corr. 27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. 28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
flickster stated it well. "I can translate for you (at least just as well as the preacher can) “Praise the Lord, and send your money” is an apt translation in most cases.
The fellow who wants to impress you with his “revelation” from god is a fraud and a deceit.
FWIW, I do not recall the “translations” I heard ever be anything like “send money”. They were just typical preaching/testifying stuff.
The church I went to as a kid was pretty well-meaning, in my recollection. Fundie and wrong, but well-meaning.
Perhaps in most cases, but not with this guy, I don’t think. He may have had it in the back of his mind to try to convert me at some later date - I don’t know, he didn’t attempt to give me any advice or ask for anything. I think he really believes in the stuff.
And it seems plausible to me that a person could put himself into a trance and speak gibberish, and that it could make him/her feel pretty good. Attaching religious meaning to it would folow naturally for some.
And of course where there’s religious belief, there’s always someone around to try to make a buck off it. But not this dude, I don’t think.
It never fails to baffle me that some folks think that speaking so that nobody can understand is somehow “speaking in tongues”. I can do that at will. But the Biblical feat referred to as “speaking in tongues” is speaking such that everyone can understand, which if you ask me is much more impressive. See Acts 2:
But, of course, this is much more difficult to fake (deliberately or subconsciously).
Non-canon (to the Bible) but the book Snow Crash details a possible scenario for ‘speaking in tongues’. In the novel, its akin to a computer virus, with people ‘infecting’ one another and our hero, Hiro, is barely able to save the day.
This doesn’t sound like they’re talking about some kind of divine glossolalia. It sounds more like a practical, if slightly arcane, rule to ensure that when everyone in the church is conversing in Aramaic or Greek, some Persian-speaking pagans don’t sneak in and start bad-mouthing Jesus, or to ensure that local churches don’t get taken over by immigrant populations.
Of course, the OP’s friend is indulging in a non sequitur.
Making some sounds that resemble speech in a foreign language doesn’t say anything about whether you have been “touched by God”, it just means you have made some sounds that resemble speech in a foreign language.
If I stand up in church and speak Coptic, and there are no native Coptic speakers, then I have not “Spoken in tongues” as the bible describes it.
If I go to a church in Nigeria, and speak out in English, and the Ebo speakers hear me speaking in Ebo, and the Hausa speakers hear me speaking in Hausa, and the Ashanti speakers hear me speaking in Ashanti, then I am speaking in tongues.
Only the Lord can do the second. Any fool can do the first.
Tris
Ronk, email me at sdmb_abbie@yahoo.com
I woulda just emailed you, but there’s no email for you in your profile 
You know I’m starting to think that maybe there really is vver eos et accusam dignissum qui blandit est praesent luptatum delenit aigue excepteur sint occae. Et harumd dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Yoii rockem sockem mow-em yown. Manarie li que vaqeriao. Occae et harumb bet theap. Est praesent luptatum. Ha! Bis nostrud exercitation ullam mmodo consequet. Duis aute in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. At vver eos et accusam dignissum qui blandit est praesent luptatum delenit aigue excepteur sint occae. Et harumd dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Et harumd dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Yoii rockem sockem mow-em yown. Manarie li que vaqeriao. Occae et harumb bet theap. Est praesent luptatum.
BTW, Abbie just ried to email you but got:
“This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account” error
But you can email me at ronk [at] skiddlydee.com